


Riddles & Fiddles & a Few Bagpipes, Too: Being the Twenty-Second Tale of the Coin, the Sword and the Medallion

by LooNEY_DAC



Series: The Medallion [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Behold My Insanity!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-25 19:08:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16666549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LooNEY_DAC/pseuds/LooNEY_DAC





	1. Fey’d Away

Alamsta and the emissary from the Realm Above were walking down one of the Castle’s corridors towards the Throne Room in the middle of exchanging their concerns over a recent series of disappearances in the Realm Above when they themselves vanished; before I could cry out, so had I.

Alamsta, the emissary from the Realm Above and I were in a holding pen with maybe thirty or forty other people (counting bunnies, centaurs, satyrs, giants, dragons and other such as people, you understand); through one translucent wall, I could make out that our pen was one of a number like it, though I couldn’t tell how full or empty any of the others were.

As soon as I arrived, an argument erupted in my mind between two annoyingly nasal voices with the worst faux Irish accents I’d ever heard; the argument was over me. I was apparently throwing a monkey wrench in their plans without even doing anything yet.

One of the voices was adamant. “We all agreed: no taking natives from worlds with nukes. Send him back before the Top Dog finds out and we’re all toasted!” That was interesting: they could tell where I had come from originally. I briefly wondered how, but dismissed it as unimportant after a few moments.

The other voice was somewhat confused and hence blustery in its reply. “I swear, the thing was set to grab up contestants from just that one place! If this dude’s from some other world, then he must’ve left that world and entered theirs, which voids his protection!”

I chose that moment to enter the argument. “Speaking of Protection, I am the Young Protector, one of the Protectors of the Realm of Magnatharast, and I call upon you to return us all immediately or face the consequences.” I didn’t expect them to take me seriously, but I had to try.

They definitely didn’t take me seriously; the adamant voice rather condescendingly replied, “Sure, sure, boyo; we’ve heard it all before. Just sit quiet while the grown-ups talk this out, me bucko.” I got the feeling the voice wanted to switch the first consonant of ‘bucko’ for another, but hadn’t at the last moment.

The other voice ignored me completely but snarked back at the adamant voice, “That’s rich, coming from you. ‘Grown-ups’ indeed.”

The adamant voice ignored the taunt in favor of instructing, “Look, just get back to kitting all this lot out so they’ll be ready for the competition; I’ll check the translator to see if something went awry.”

All around me, the others in the pen yelped in surprise when musical instruments began appearing in their hands; mostly, they were fiddles, but some got full bagpipes to carry. Soon, I was the only one with no instrument.

The Medallion flashed, and the other voice let out a yelp. I filed away the fact that while the Medallion had allowed me to join Alamsta here, it had prevented our unseen hosts from placing an instrument in my hands.

The adamant voice held a distinct tone of ‘you idiot’ when it asked, “What happened, [name]?” [A Note from the Translators: Due to the identity of the voices, the names mentioned, though completely legible in the original, simply cannot be reproduced in any form whatsoever: handwriting or print becomes illegible, while speech becomes indecipherable; all names of the antagonists in this story, therefore, have been replaced by [name] (brackets included). We apologize greatly for this necessity.]

The other voice sputtered and stuttered for a bit, but was unable to come up with a coherent statement to satisfy the adamant voice.

The adamant voice had that tone of strained patience that’s supposed to warn the addressee that they should stop straining the speaker’s patience already. “Look, you know the drill: no mind tweaks and no body changes, no matter how funny they’d be; just get them kitted out for the competition. We don’t want another run-in with an Adjudicator bringing this into the sunlight, do we? Not after what happened to—” The adamant voice stopped abruptly.

The other voice was surly as it replied, “I was just trying to give him his fiddle like I did with the others, but he has some kind of protective thing on him!”

This gave the adamant voice pause. “What?”

I held up the Medallion. “I am the Young Protector, one of the Protectors of the Realm of Magnatharast, and I call upon you to return us all immediately or face the consequences.” I paused then. “But, of course, you’ve heard all that before, haven’t you?”

The Medallion flashed, and this time it was the adamant voice which let out a yelp. Then it addressed me in a much more conciliatory tone than any it had used heretofore, “Pray, forgive us, Master Protector; rest assured, we shall indeed return you and yours to your rightful place as soon as the competition is completed. Until then, rest easy in the knowledge that no harm will come to any of you.”

Such charm. Such sincerity. Such a bunch of blatant lies. I was about to call them on their mendacity when the First Protector told me, ‘Let it rest for now, Young Protector’, so I did.

The adamant voice was alarmed now. “Who was that?”

I spoke up quickly, “Oh, that’s just my friend Joey.” I had a sneaking suspicion as to just what kind of creatures the voices belonged to, and if I was right, giving them your true name would give them some kind of power over you. Besides, when I’d known him as a small boy, “Joey” was the nom de guerre I’d known him under.

I could almost see the First Protector’s smile when he said, ‘There is no need for that, Young Protector. I am Carinste-Nonthe, the First Protector of the Realm of Magnatharast, and I will be watching this competition of yours.’

The adamant voice was very small now when it replied, “Very well, sir.” Its owner had obviously noted that the First Protector was not in the least concerned about their knowing his true name, at least strongly implying that they could do nothing with it.

The First Protector addressed me again: ‘Now, Young Protector, remember what I told you: Do not let past betrayal blind you to making an ally of convenience; nor should you surrender your own honor for the sake of expediency. Be true to yourself and your Oaths and you will prevail.’

The other voice let out a noise, but the adamant voice shushed it. “The First Protector has not violated the Rules, nor suggested that the Young Protector do so. Shall we escort you to the observatorium, sir?”

With that, I felt the voices depart, leaving me with the others in the pen, who were all looking at me somewhat strangely…

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. The Games Begin

A moment later, the translucent panel of the pen opened and the wall opposite began to advance, herding us into the open space where our jailer waited in the flesh. I was certain that this was the owner of one of the voices I’d just been speaking with, most probably the other one, called [name] by the adamant one.

Our jailer looked like a cross between those weird ‘alien abductors’ the UFO freaks won’t shut up about [Editors’ Note: Your guess is as good as ours on that one] and a more traditional depiction of the Little People, except that he held a sword and a whip. I had guessed right: we were being held by the Fey.

The satyrs and the centaurs tried to protest to our jailer that they were fey too, and should be excluded from whatever our captors were going to put the rest of us through, but our jailer paid them as little heed as the voices had paid me before the Medallion had demonstrated that I was not to be trifled with. Instead, our jailer used the whip to line us up into groups that corresponded to where we had been taken from; I presumed these would be our “teams”.

There were groups made up of: the previously mentioned centaurs and satyrs; both kinds of giant (that is, the smaller ones from the Realm Above and the larger ones who roamed the barren lands to the far northeast of the Realm Proper, both suitably reduced in size); bunnies from the rump Bunny Empire and from the Realm’s “second chance” colonies; dragons; and humans from the Miners’ Domain, the glider guys, the Realm Above, and the Realm’s “second chance” colonies, as well as Alamsta and me; and two or three other groups whose origins I never cared to learn besides.

As soon as we were in our “proper groups”, spotlights fell on each group and an announcer began speaking, still in that terrible faux Irish accent that the other voices had used. “Fellow Fey of all shapes, sizes, powers and stations, WELCOME to the seven-and-fifth-and-ninth cycle of the Games! For your pleasure, the contestants today have been selected from the world of [name], the one whose last representatives gave you such thrills in the last three Game cycles!”

The applause nearly deafened all of us in what was obviously the arena before the jailer remembered to turn on what was evidently a noise reducer. (I know I’m saying things were “evidently” this or that a lot, but since nothing was labeled, I had to try to deduce what any given unfamiliar thing was from what it seemed to do; I could be wrong on these assumptions.)

The announcer continued, “And let’s have a grand show of welcome for an unexpected but most distinguished guest: Carinste-Nonthe, First Protector of the Realm of Magnatharast, here to watch his protege the Young Protector and the Heiress Apparent to the Line of Magnatharast, Alamsta daughter of Alamanast, as they compete in the Games on behalf of the Realm of Magnatharast!”

Even through the sound reduction, I could tell that the responding applause was rather tepid, but I was more concerned with what exactly these Games would consist of.

Fortunately, the announcer rushed to inform everyone, “And now, let’s select the first event! Let’s give a hand to [name], our lucky audience member who won the honor of the first pick!”

Great. Not even our captors knew yet what they wanted us to do. This almost seemed like it was designed to get us all as wound up as possible so that we’d most likely fail whatever challenge was laid before us; actually, that sounded like an almost prototypically Fey thing to do, come to think of it: get the marks, set them up for failure, and laugh all the while as disaster struck.

The announcer spoke again. “And the first event will be…”

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Do You Like Good Music?

The announcer concluded: “…the first Fiddle-Off!”

What was this supposed to be, American Bandstand or something? Oy. I personally prefer Guy Lombardo, but I’m in the minority on that. Well, hopefully nobody would want me to do any of the fiddling, as I’m more Jack Benny than Jascha Heifetz (seriously, I’d settle for being another Israel Baker).

The announcer spoke again. “And this match will be between… the Bunny Empire and the Tribe of Yunth!”

I briefly wondered if the Tribe of Yunth had a leader named Battle-Ah as the spotlights dropped away from all but what I had to assume were the two named groups. This and a multitude of other horrible puns flooded my mind in a panicked wave as the realization hit me that I was going to have to perform in front of an audience, unleashing a heretofore unknown phobia from the depths of my subconscious mind: stage fright.

As the fear shot down to my bowels and started making pretzels out of them, I wondered if it was just me, or did these stupid new fears just create themselves… in… my… head. Wait… There was something familiar about that, but what could it—Ah! Now I remembered: the giants from the Realm Above had had a fear ray which they had used to control their human slaves; this must be something similar, as I’ve had to “perform” before audiences before without feeling like this.

The realization helped me bring myself into focus, which enabled me to begin observing what was actually going on in the arena. The people in the groups that were not spotlighted were all standing quite unnaturally still; I suspected the fear ray was being used to keep us all that way, while ratcheting up the potential for self-sabotage that I’d considered earlier. Yep: these Fey were definitely acting true to form.

The competition itself was rather chaotic, which I supposed that the Fey enjoyed tremendously. Both groups immediately began playing on their fiddles, each group trying to outdo the other while still harmonizing rather than clashing with each other; it was a remarkable demonstration of technical skill on the part of both groups. I had to wonder whether all of the contests would work in this same manner, or whether it was just a feature of a fiddle-off.

It was just a little puzzling that the Fey had “just happened” to pick up so many good fiddlers; I was starting to suspect that it was about as “coincidental” as my visions on the Visualizer had been all those years ago.

I turned my attention back to the fiddlers. Hopefully, the contest wouldn’t be disrupted by a glockenspiel disguised as a French horn, or I might have to emulate the cymbals in my disgust. Pah!

Humor aside, both groups were still churning out excellent performances, though I couldn’t see them keeping up the frenetic pace they were both going at for much longer; I almost expected the violins to start sequentially catching fire after a few seconds or minutes (while still staying in time with the tune, you understand). I was also certain now that despite one of the Fey’s earlier remarks about “no messing with their minds”, the Fey had implanted the ability to play the violin in the contestants.

Finally, the music came to a stop. I hadn’t heard anything that would tell me the music was ending or that sounded like one of the groups had committed some horrible musical sin; it just stopped, leaving me to wonder why, and who had won. The others around me looked just as puzzled, which reassured me that I wasn’t just the odd man out this time in not knowing.

The announcer spoke again. “Let’s hear it for our contestants!” After a small pause for applause, the announcer continued, “And the winner is…”

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. The Art of Cooperative Competition

Most of the others were hanging on the forthcoming announcement of the victor with bated breath; I was of the opinion that it was just a contest, not a matter of life and death. How wrong I was.

When the announcer finally said, and with a great deal of satisfaction, “…The Bunnies of the Empire!”, there was an odd mix of reactions: some were visibly relieved; some were indifferent; and some were horrified. “Let’s salute the losers of the Tribe of Yeth as we send them off to the utter destruction that they deserve!”

Wait, what?

The emissary from the Realm Above murmured something about this being worse than they’d even thought as the group from the Tribe of Yeth vanished with a scream of terror.

So this was what I was faced with: each group would be pitted against the others with the losers facing annihilation until there was only one group left standing. This was unacceptable on so many levels that it would take the rest of this notebook just to list half of them, but one thing that jumped to mind immediately was that this was what had happened to the Reaving March that had just vanished when it was about to attack the Realm Proper.

Another and more important thought that leapt into my mind was that there were at least five groups here that I was pledged to Protect, even had I been willing to sacrifice the others, which I most certainly was not. No, not even the glider guys or the Bunny Empire; in fact, I was pretty sure that when the First Protector had talked about “past enmity” not blinding me to “an alliance of convenience”, he’d been talking about them.

One thing was certain: it was going to take all of us working together even as we pretended to compete in these games to overcome these Fey (or so I thought at the time).

The critical question became: how was I going to convince the others of this? How was I even going to get a chance to talk to them?

The answer to the latter question was almost laughably easy, as we were herded back into the holding pen after the announcer said, “And now, please enjoy this five minute intermission.” Yet ideas for answering the former and much more urgent and important question kept eluding me. I only had five minutes; how could I come up with anything in such a short space of time?

Well, at least I knew that all of us wanted to get out of here, so there was a point I could use in my favor.

Wait, why was I trying to do the diplomacy thing when Alamsta was here? I nearly slapped myself over my own stupidity. Maybe I was just too used to having to do everything myself.

It didn’t take long to apprise Alamsta of what what I needed her to do; it took her even less time to convince most of the other groups that it was the right thing. Unfortunately, a couple of the groups wouldn’t listen to the Heiress Apparent of the Realm, even when it came to saving their own skins. Not unnaturally, this included the Bunny Empire group and the glider guys.

I went over to the bunnies and showed them my palm. Suddenly, they became a whole lot more reasonable, though I had already moved on to the glider guys. “Which of you do I need to kill to take your group over?” I asked casually, though I recognized them all from my recent trip to their capital city.

They recognized me, too, and nearly needed new pants when I asked the question. You see, I was a dead ringer for the Assassin, their leader until I had provoked one of their Justiciars into killing him. They knew I was as tough as the Assassin and could probably go through the lot of them without too much of a problem, so they decided to be reasonable as well.

So much harmony amongst us was bound to lead us into nothing but more trouble…

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. Ex Machinations

Our rest time up, we were gruffly and roughly herded back into the arena and split off into our various groups. Our Fey jailer looked us over suspiciously, but since we were at least outwardly compliant, the jailer decided not to start anything that might result in anyone other than us getting into hot water.

Once we were all in place, the same routine repeated itself as it had the first time: the announcer called on a member of the audience to select the next event and another to select the contestants who would be participating. This time, however, the event was to be a tale-telling competition between the humans of the Realm Above and the Miners’ Domain, which was one of the scenarios I had fervently desired to avoid.

It was almost as though the Fey fed off of this kind of internal conflict, as the Fey jailer moved closer to me specifically when the contestants were announced, grinning at me with an unabashed sadism that made my flesh crawl.

The rules (such as they were) went thusly: on each turn, the contestant would build on what was left for them and try to position the story so that the next contestant would be stuck; it was a very typically Fey system. It would also be rather hard for the contestants to try to cooperate, though that’s what we had all just agreed to do.

The sad part was that the first time the Fey tried to give the first group of contestants the setup for the story, said setup (augmented by suggestions shouted out by the audience) got so incredibly convoluted that the Fey relating it to them got lost no less than five times and had to go back, omitting something different each time. Things that were lost from the setup along the way: a small Tyrolean village (I have no idea…); a cow with a crumpled horn; a quick brown fox (the lazy dogs remained in each retelling, though); some sentient porridge (I wanted to call it George); and a sawmill made of straw spun into gold. The other Fey actually had to stop the first one and restart the contest with another (and much simpler) setup.

My original plan was obviously not going to work here, so while the Fey had been tangling themselves up in trying to set the contest up, I had been plotting out my next moves like a chessmaster on speed, and I was pretty sure that what I’d come up with would work. I couldn’t tell anyone what the new plan was, though, so I would have to rely on their trust in me to secure their support; I was now quite certain as to why the Artificer and the First Protector had been so insistent that I secure Alamsta’s trust before we got snatched away, since her trust in me would be the key to the others’ trusting in me.

Of course, a lot of this plan depended on certain assumptions and deductions I had made because of: how the Fey had set this up; what the Fey had said to each other; how the Fey had treated the First Protector; and how the First Protector had treated the Fey. Now, I was pretty certain that these assumptions and deductions were soundly based, but if I turned out to be wrong (either all the way or even just slightly), I was probably about to commit what might very well be the last mistake I’d ever make. I almost smiled at the thought that after all the effort that I’d gone to in order to secure the trust of others I might not trust myself enough now.

It was time. “Stop!” I bellowed, stepping forward from the group representing the Realm Proper. The spotlight that focused on me an instant later nearly blinded me, but I pressed on. “This farce of a contest has gone on too long already!”

Every head in the arena turned to look at me in amazement…

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. The Twist in the Tale

I had a feeling that the Fey were not going to like the tale I was about to tell, even though they were in the starring role. Oh well.

With my defiant outburst I had gained the attention of every last Fey attending the games; now, I had to make the case I had so carefully formulated while the Fey were stumbling through setting up this contest. “This farce of a contest has gone on too long already,” I repeated, adding, “and it hasn’t even begun!”

This was the part where I could easily have stumbled on the follow-through, but I managed to keep going. “You call yourselves the Fair Folk, imagining yourselves the epitome not only of attractiveness but of cleverness and of justice when all three are patently absurd as demonstrated by your own actions here.”

I began a long and detailed litany of every specific way in which the Fey had mistreated us and how it was illegal by the laws of not just the Realm Proper, but every single group gathered in the arena. There were not a few murmurs of agreement from the others as I made my case, but no one else stepped forward to support me just yet, which was as I had expected.

The litany (as such) ended with my calling upon the Fey to return us immediately or face ridicule as ineffective little twerps. This sent an audible shock through the listening Fey, so I began detailing how they could have, with much less time, effort and power expended, set up and run these same games openly, with the participants coming to them willingly instead of needing to be abducted. “And I just came up with that scheme in the short time I’ve been talking here,” I concluded. “How long have you guys been running these games again?”

I let the resulting pause linger before bluntly declaring, “Thus it is shown that you oh-so-powerful Fey are just a bunch of idiots who couldn’t come up with a good plan to save your lives.” There. That should bring the response I was aiming for down on me. See, while the Fey love ridiculing what they consider to be lesser races than themselves (either individually or as a whole), their monumental egos can’t bear the thought that these lesser races would speak or even think badly of the Fey, to say nothing of open mockery of the type I was essaying.

Suddenly the Fey jailer was joined by a dozen more, all ranged around me and ready for action; from what I could tell, the expression on their faces boded no good for me. “I’ll give you until I crack my whip again to retract that,” the Fey jailer warned, flicking said whip a few times in a manner calculated to test my resolve. Meanwhile, a wicked-looking blade silently rose into a ready position behind the Fey jailer’s head to show the consequences if I didn’t back down from my mockery.

I didn’t reply, though the Fey jailer waited for what seemed like a tremendously long time; both of us barely breathed all the while, and certainly neither of us blinked. Finally, though, the whip cracked against the arena floor again, and the Fey jailer brought the blade down straight at my head. In a last, futile gesture of defiance, I held up the Coin…

…And the Fey jailer’s blade met that of the Sword with a mighty clang!

The Sword was almost radiant enough for me to think that it was “merely” (ha, ha, ha) that first spectral version of it which I had borne on my very first visit to the Realm so long ago and with which I had vanquished an attacking trio of spooks; the weight of the hilt in my hand was all too real, however. While any of the Line of Magnatharast could lawfully bear either the Coin or the Medallion, only a True Protector of the Realm can bear the Sword, and only for very specific purposes.

The Fey jailer almost dropped the blade in shock at the sudden appearance of the Sword, while the other Fey around me let out an audible gasp, as did not a few of my fellow captives. I knew that none of the Fey would dare strike at me—for the moment, anyway.

It is beyond my power to put into words how relieved I was that I bore the Sword once more…

TO BE CONTINUED


	7. Sword Losers

The Sword was so bright that it was almost painful for me to see; certainly the Fey didn’t want to look at it either. We were locked in a stand-off, the Fey jailers and I, and while I was ready to strike at any who attacked me, I was not willing to strike out unprovoked; the Fey had their own reasons for holding back.

As I held the Fey jailers at bay, the deep, resonant pseudo-voice of the First Protector echoed through the tense silence filling the arena. “And now it is my turn to tell a tale.”

Well, this ought to be interesting at the very least; it might even be entertaining as well.

Now, rather than quote the First Protector directly and extensively, I’ll epitomize the story into a few concise paragraphs, with direct quotes for a couple of particularly nice points the First Protector made and the directions he eventually gave me. The Fey were an old and powerful race (etc., etc.) who had spread out into many branches, of which the current was evidently the wisest and most powerful (etc., etc.), and owing to this separation there were perhaps certain important things of which the members of this particular branch were not aware.

This was only the second time the First Protector had had to deal directly with the Fey, and he dearly hoped it would go better for the Fey than the last time had. You see, the last time a bunch of Fey had decided to try to mess with the then-fledgling Realm Proper, they had done so at the suggestion of some foolish human with a magic talisman who could change himself into a dragon. (Gee, I wonder who that could have been?) This had proved to be a very bad decision on the part of that branch of the Fey; in fact, it hadn’t taken long before Magnatharast and the First Protector had entirely demolished them through the power of the Coin, the Sword, and the Medallion, wiping that branch of the Fey out utterly when they refused to stop their meddling. Such was the fate of the [name].

The Fey jailers around me looked at each other nervously; it was obvious that they had recognized the name [name]. Before any of the Fey could comment on this, however, the First Protector added, “Of course, you may believe that I’m lying, so behold what my associate is holding: the Medallion.”

At this cue, I held up the Medallion while keeping the Sword obviously at the ready. The First Protector continued, “Note the ribbon from which it hangs; note it very carefully. Can you not feel what it is?”

An unseen Fey voice exclaimed, “It’s made from the Fair Hair of [name], he who was king of the [name]!”

I could see the First Protector’s nod in my mind’s eye. “Precisely: the ribbon is made from hairs taken from the corpse of [name], the king of the [name]; I presume you can feel the truth of what I say from it.”

It was at this point that the First Protector’s story shifted to the story of how the present group of Fey (the [name], who were much Greater Fey in power and wisdom than the [name] had been) had come upon that very same human who had lured the [name] to their destruction so long before, had fallen under his sway, and so had decided to start these games; but when they’d heard the true story of what had happened to the [name], their native wisdom (being so much greater than that of the [name]) had reasserted itself against the mystically persuasive powers of the Magician’s Dark Medallion (not that the First Protector named them as such, but really) and they’d changed their plans accordingly.

The First Protector concluded, “So it was that the Greater Fey learned from the errors of their Lesser kin, returned their kidnap victims to the world from which they had been abducted, and fled as far away as they could get, fearing the wrath of the Protectors of the Realm of Magnatharast. That is how the tale should end, unless you desire that it should end with the ending of the Greater Fey altogether.” His words grew ever more pointed until he reached the word “unless”.

The Sword was light in my hand and ready for action as I awaited the answer from the Fey…

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. Run Away, Fey!

You know, that tale of the First Protector’s had actually explained quite a bit about what the Realm had faced: the Magician was obviously throwing everything he could find at the Realm so that he could finally avenge his many and repeated defeats by the Protectors in any way that he could. Presumably, we would be facing another direct attack by him in his dragon form as soon as he could manage it, along with any allies he could find that we hadn’t already killed or turned against him.

It was definitely something I’d have to think over later on, but there were more pressing problems for me to deal with just now.

Before any of the other Fey could respond to the story the First Protector had just told, the Fey jailer closest to me leapt to attack me, screaming, “The [name] must be avenged!” This was a response for which I was more than ready, though the Fey jailer may not have believed so.

Almost before the Fey jailer had finished speaking, I lashed out with the Sword in one blindingly fast motion; one strike was all I needed. The Sword cut through the Fey jailer like it had through the spooks the very first time I had wielded it: like a broom through cobwebs.

I would be less than human if I hadn’t felt some satisfaction to see our primary tormentor among the Fey cut down before me, but not only was that not my primary feeling, it rose no higher than the third order of my reactions to the Fey jailer’s death. First and foremost, as always, was regret that my latest victim (per se) had been so unreasonable as to necessitate their death; second was hope that the others would heed the example thus presented; and then came the dark hint of satisfaction I mentioned earlier.

I am not the Assassin.

As the Fey jailer’s body evaporated like dew in the morning sun, I brought the Sword back to the ready position and shouted out the words I had heard so long ago: “The Power of the Sword is that of Righteous Judgment! It may only be swung against those who are unrepentantly evil,” and I added what I had told the Scowrers when they tried to kill me the last time I had had to wield the Sword: “so turn back and live!”

For once, somebody actually listened when I said that, which startled me quite a bit. Before I or anyone else could say another word, all the Fey around me shrieked in absolute terror (a sound not unlike that made by the group from the Tribe of Yunth when the Fey had eliminated them from the contest, I noted with no little schadenfreude) and vanished, their departure setting the walls of the arena trembling and groaning and cracking. I presumed all of the Fey had taken the First Protector’s advice and run as far and as fast as they could, and that these Fey, at least, would no longer be troubling us.

Of course, the arena was still shuddering and getting ready to collapse around us. The Sword had vanished when the Fey had, so I held up the Medallion, which shone as brightly as I had ever seen it. “Rally all to the Medallion!” I cried, and everyone who was left in the arena did. Once they were all squashed together within arm’s reach of me (or as close as they could manage), my fingers brushed across the Coin and the whole bunch of us instantly vanished, only to reappear in the Throne Room of the Castle of Magnatharast in the Realm Proper.

For a moment, I couldn’t quite believe I’d pulled it off, but once we all counted up it became obvious that everyone who was left to save had made it back.

Getting everybody back to their homelands was a slightly complicated affair, but Alamsta’s people proved to be highly competent at this kind of thing, so they got it all sorted out fairly quickly; certainly the foreign delegations were all safely back home before Alamsta and I had to set off once more…

…But that’s part of another story.

THUS ENDS

Riddles & Fiddles & a Few Bagpipes, Too

Being the Twenty-Second Tale of the Coin, the Sword and the Medallion

THE STORY CONTINUES WITH

The Undesired Princess & the Enchanted Bunny: the Final Chapter

Being the Twenty-Third Tale of the Coin, the Sword and the Medallion


End file.
